


Night (This Crime, The Shame Of What A Man Can Do)

by luninosity



Series: The Epic Universe of Porn, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Trauma, and Love [13]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Desperate!Michael, Hopeful Ending, Hospitals, Hurt!James, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Rape Aftermath, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 19:57:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a difference between finding someone, and actually rescuing him. James in the hospital, devastated Michael, the importance of never giving up, love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night (This Crime, The Shame Of What A Man Can Do)

**Author's Note:**

> The immediate sequel to "Blood", which you should read first, because this one starts where the cliffhanger left off!
> 
> Title from Toad The Wet Sprocket’s “Hold Her Down”, which always makes me uncomfortable but fits too well: _take the night back/ all they’ve stolen/ all they took from you…_

(ground zero / plus one day)

After one split second of paralysis, Michael darted through the cars, and ran for the house, without a second, or even first, thought.

One of the officers at the door tried to say “Wait—!” and Michael shouted “Are you _insane!_ ” and flung himself inside and down the stairs, following the babble of voices.

He froze, at the bottom of the steps. Reached over and put a hand on the wall, blindly, for what little support it could offer. It didn’t try very hard.

James, on the bed, didn’t move. Lay crumpled up in what Michael thought at first were patterned sheets, all red and white. They weren’t patterned sheets, though. Only white. The redness came from something else.

James was breathing, though. Michael could see that even in the dimness. That was the only indication that he might still be alive.

The bullet hadn’t hit James. There was another body. On the floor.

That fact ought to be important, and it would be. Later.

There was also a very young police officer, shaking hysterically. “I didn’t—did I—he had a knife, I—” And his partner patted him on the shoulder, and then, very calmly, called it in as self-defense.

“…and we could also use the paramedics down here, immediately, our victim is still alive but this looks like a pretty nasty sexual assault case…”

Still alive. The victim. _James_. Michael forced his legs into forward motion. Stumbled across the room, barely even noticing all the glints of leather, metal, horrifying suggestions that decorated the walls.

The police glanced up at him, but obviously chose to let him have the moment of reunion. Michael would be grateful to them for that, but not now. Now he just needed to be there, next to James.

The eyes were closed. One of them was swollen, and turning dark. Somehow he registered that first. He loved those eyes, all blue and bright as the ocean under sunlight, and one of them couldn’t open, now, turned black and purple and ugly. But that would heal, he thought. Bruises, and black eyes, healed.

And then he looked lower. And then found himself on his knees, on the cruelly uncushioned floor beside the bed, shaking and unable to stand.

They hadn’t been in time. James might still be alive, but they hadn’t been in time. They hadn’t saved him.

The paramedics clustered around the bed. One of them swore, rather impressively. And then they went into a blur of rapid motion, unfastening brutal restraints, removing sadistic metal, pressing pristine bandages into service to hold back sluggishly oozing blood. Someone came over to help with the handcuffs; they’d found the keys, next to the bed.

James never moved. Never made a sound.

Michael reached for his hand, through the press of bodies. The eloquent fingers, once so happily mobile, felt cold. “James?”

One of the paramedics looked at him, then. Sighed. Compassionately, Michael thought. Or maybe that was pity. He couldn’t tell. Didn’t want to know.

Isolated phrases hung in the air. Severe blood loss, he heard. Sexual assault, again, which seemed like far too clinical a term, some sort of surreal euphemism for all the blood staining golden freckles and pale skin. And more frightening words: traumatic shock, nonresponsive, possible catatonic state.

“James,” he said again, a little louder. “Please.”

Nothing.

“No. No, come on, please, you can’t be—I’m here, we found you, I love you, _please_ —” He had to let go, because they were transferring James to a stretcher. Preparing to whisk him off to the hospital. He looked at the sympathetic paramedic, mutely. The man sighed again, but kindly, and jerked his head at the doors of the ambulance: get in.

Michael tried to say thank you. The words got trapped inside his throat, and died there. But the man seemed to understand, regardless.

At the hospital, they took James away from him. Into surgery. Trying to repair some of the damage. Physically, at least. Anything else might not be possible.

Michael sat numbly in the hard plastic chairs, in the waiting room, and stared at the scuffed linoleum tiles of the floor. The closest dark streak looked like a smiling face. He hated it.

Other people turned up, slowly. Ian and Patrick, who sat down beside him, still not speaking. He wanted to lean over onto their shoulders and cry, but he didn’t, and he didn’t know why he didn’t.

Matthew came over, too, bringing coffee, which Michael accepted just to have a physical object to hold onto; he wasn’t certain he could recall what to do with the cup, beyond that. Matthew was followed, after a few minutes, by Kevin, who said, quietly, that more of them had wanted to come, but they’d not been sure how many people should be present, and they’d so far been keeping everything out of the media. Michael nodded. Kept staring at the floor.

Another hour went by. How was it still the same night? Technically, though, he supposed it was the next day; outside, the sun was coming up, tentatively, unsure that its presence would be welcome. It offered up streaks of rose and honey and amber, as if trying to bring some color back into the world.

James would have enjoyed this sunrise. James liked to sleep in, in the mornings, curled up in every blanket they’d ever purchased plus Michael’s arms, but they’d spent enough late nights on film sets, or at parties, or just staying up together, that he knew the way James looked, bathed in pale golden light, at the birth of the sun.

James loved sunrises. Michael had teased him about that, once, on a balcony in Venice, watching the light pour out over the water; for someone who would never be a morning person, James could talk about sunrises as if they were poetry.

Of course, James could talk about anything, with all that passion and enthusiasm, and it would sound like poetry, in that gleeful Scottish purr.

James might not ever be able to talk to him again. And even if he could, might not remember how to love anything at all.

The door opened. A doctor came in. Glanced around the room. “Mr Fassbender?”

Somehow it took him a second, and Patrick poking him in the side, to recall that those words meant him. “Um. Yes.”

“We do have an update on James for you. Can you step out here, for a second?”

That couldn’t mean anything good. He knew it couldn’t. He also wasn’t too sure about the phrasing of that question; _could_ he manage to stand up and step outside?

He did, though. Left behind all the concerned gazes, waiting in the waiting room, and listened.

He’d been right. It wasn’t good.

It could have been worse, they told him. Most of the knife-wounds weren’t deep; the surface-level cuts bled a lot, but would close up quickly. They were concerned about the severity of the bruising in James’s throat—Michael had to ask, and then almost started hyperventilating at the description—but thought that that, too, should heal, eventually.

There were other things. More frightening. Words like _tearing_ , and _penetration_ , and _foreign objects_. They talked about their rescue efforts, using words like _recovery time_ and _dissolving stitches_ , which they pronounced as if proud of some new discovery. Michael pressed one hand against his mouth. Fought not to vomit onto the shiny linoleum floor.

In time, they said, those injuries would heal as well; rape victims did recover, on the physical level. Even as brutal as this had been. It might take some time, but James was young, and healthy, and strong, otherwise.

Emotionally, they told him, he should be prepared for the worst. James hadn’t responded to anyone, hadn’t spoken, wouldn’t open his eyes. He was there—he was conscious, more or less, and awake—but hiding, they said. Traumatized. Probably not just from this experience alone, but from reliving those memories, all the fear he thought he’d escaped.

Michael’s legs gave way, at that. He’d always thought that was just a cliché. It wasn’t.

Thank god there was a convenient bench beside him. Otherwise he’d’ve just kept falling, and ended up on the ground.

James might still be able to hear everyone, though. He did comprehend that much, through all the sentences and medical explanations of traumatic shock that his ears couldn’t process. James could be aware of his surroundings. Just too afraid to respond to them.

One of the doctors sat down next to him. “We think that maybe he’d listen to you. He doesn’t know us; he won’t believe us, if we tell him that he’s safe. But the reassurance of loved ones, in cases like this…that can sometimes work.”

“Sometimes.”

“Yes. Sometimes.”

“Can I…can I try? Is he—can I go see him?”

“Yes, you can. We’ll have someone take you up there. If he does respond to you, in any way, that’s a good sign. On the off chance he wakes up and tries to talk, it’ll hurt; don’t let him strain himself. Don’t expect that, though. And if he doesn’t want to hear you, it isn’t about you, it’s about everything he’s been through. So don’t be discouraged if he doesn’t respond, all right?”

They didn’t want him to have any expectations, Michael could tell. He could see it in their faces. He shut his eyes. Refused, with everything he was, to let himself feel hopeless. He wasn’t giving up on James. Not ever. Not if he had to keep trying forever.

Something would work. It had to. He wouldn’t let any other outcome be true.

He followed one of the nurses down the hall. Stopped, in front of the doorway, surrounded by the drifting scents of antiseptic and pain, suddenly unable to go any closer. The nurse put a hand on his forearm, gave him a reassuring smile, and opened the door for him, and then moved away.

He put one foot inside, across the threshold. The world didn’t break in two, at the disturbance; James didn’t move, either. Of course not. What had he been expecting?

A few more steps. It wasn’t that big a room. Just the right size for an apocalypse.

James looked better, for a certain definition of better. Cleaned up, at least, and most of the bodily injuries hidden away beneath tidy wintry dressings and the cool clean top snowdrift of the sheet. The only visible reminders, in fact, were the bandages around his wrists from the bite of the handcuffs, and the smaller line at the side of his throat; the two taped-up fingers on his hand, the left one; and the vicious discoloration of the bruises, around his neck, over his eye, which apparently hadn’t needed a covering. All of the _other_ wounds had been tucked away, under the sheet, out of sight.

Everything in the room, the silent bedframe, the steady beeps of monitors and equipment, the turned-off television, hovered there, suspended in time.

Michael found the back of the chair, beside the bed, with his fingertips. Folded himself into it. Looked at that still face.

That couldn’t be James. James was always in motion, smiling, talking, gesturing, big expansive sweeping movements that invited the universe into the conversation too, the more the merrier. James would have looked up at him by now, and laughed, cheerfully mocking him for being so worried: “What, you thought I’d actually hide from you? I mean, I know you think you’re terrifying and all, but come on, we both know how not true _that_ is…”

“James,” he whispered, to the echo of that merrily amused voice, in his head. No answer. Not in his head, not from the unmoving form beside him on the bed.

“James? They said you should—that you might be able to hear me…” No reply. Just the regular, unchanging, rhythmic sounds of breathing, in and out, not quite complete silence.

“It’s me. It’s Michael. I love you. I’m here. And you…you’re here, too. You’re safe. You’re in the hospital. Not—you _are_ safe. I promise. You can wake up now. Any time you want.” He waited. Nothing.

“James, please. Please don’t—please come back, please be here, I need you to look at me, please tell me you’re all right, I can’t—I’m so sorry, it’s my fault, I shouldn’t’ve let you go anywhere alone, not ever, and I’ll never leave you alone again if you’ll just wake up, please…” He only realized that he was crying when he felt the warm wet taste of salt, against his lips. The tears slid down and plopped onto the linoleum flooring and splashed into oblivion.

“I want—I’d touch you, if I thought—but I don’t know if you want that. But I am here, okay? Right here. Next to you.” Was that a flicker of movement, from those long eyelashes? He held his breath. But no. Or at least it didn’t happen again.

“I love you. I’ll always love you. And this—we can get through this, we can, you’re strong enough to—I know you’re strong, James, I do, and that’s why you have to wake up, you have to—because I’m not, I can’t, I’m not strong enough to do this without you, so please don’t leave me alone, please, I’m sorry, I love you, James, _please_ …”

Still nothing. Maybe James was hearing him, maybe not; he couldn’t tell. He gazed at the shut eyes, and felt ancient, and battered, and broken, everywhere, inside and out. The tears faded and burned like fire, along his cheeks.

“James,” he said again, softly, despairingly, “I’m not leaving. I’m staying here, and I’ll keep trying—I’ll keep talking to you, or I’ll be quiet if you want, if you tell me to, but you have to tell me, all right? Please?” Maybe that was a quiver, from the closest closed eyelid. Maybe. Maybe.

“I can talk to you forever, you know. That’s absolutely a promise. I’m not going away. I might even sing to you, and you don’t want that, do you? So you should wake up before that happens.” The eyelashes trembled again; that couldn’t just be his imagination, could it?

“James?” A pause, in which the universe stopped breathing, too. Just in case. “I love you.”

And the eyes opened. Slowly. Blue as bruises, as pain, against the whiteness of the hospital pillowcases. But open. Looking at him. Real.

The tears came back. He barely noticed.

Those eyes found his. Horribly wounded, and a little lost, the once-familiar ocean-blue all clouded and dark and swimming with unspeakable things. But there. James was there.

James blinked. Focused on him. Tried to say something, and then stopped, silenced, horrified, astonished.

“Oh—oh, no, don’t—you shouldn’t—”

The eyes went enormous. Shocked.

“No! No, you can still—it’s all right, you’ll be all right, I swear—just wait, please—they said it would hurt you to talk. You have—you were—it’ll be a while, okay? But not too long. I promise.”

James kept watching him, the eyes running over his face, as if afraid to believe in his presence, afraid to believe in anything at all; Michael gazed back, and tried to shout, with every fiber of his being, yes, I’m here, I love you, I’m telling you true things, you’re all right. And thought, mutely, please, please, please. Please be all right. If that’s possible. If that’s ever possible again.

James swallowed. Licked his lips. Winced.

“Are you—do you need something? Anything? I can—”

A headshake. Then, confusingly, a small nod, and something that was, almost, a smile. Michael felt the tears creep up, again, searingly hot at the corners of his eyes. “I don’t—I’m sorry, I—I love you. What do you want me to do?”

And James looked at him, steadily, and mouthed, soundlessly and exaggeratedly clear, _love you_.

“Oh my god,” Michael said, and something frozen in his heart cracked open, and the thaw of it poured heat throughout his body, flooding his heart, over his face, damp and stinging with the inundation.

James smiled again, just a little. Tried to say something else, more complicated; Michael shook his head. “I’m sorry—I—wait, hang on—” He did still have his phone. In his pocket. No calls, of course, not inside the hospital room, but that wasn’t what he was thinking.

“Can you—is this okay?”

James nodded. Very carefully, took the phone out of his hands. Typed, _I love you_ , and then looked up, as if wanting to make certain Michael’d got the message.

“I know. I know. I love you too. Always. Always, James. You—”

_You can touch me_. The hand not holding the phone moved, slightly. Just enough to offer an invitation. Michael reached out and wrapped his fingers around that hand and held on. Tangible. Present. Here.

They held onto each other, in the quiet, surrounded by the hum of equipment and the white blankness of hospital-issue sheets. For that moment, for just that moment, it was enough. It was the entire world.

A little more slowly, as if being touched, now, made everything, even finding words, more difficult, James added, _Thank you_.

“No. No, you don’t have to—Don’t. Please. I didn’t—you know that wasn’t—I need you, too. You—you’re the other half of me. You know that, right? I’m not—come on, you do know that, I love you. Don’t say thank you. Not to me.”

_Not your fault_. Of course James knew what he was thinking.

“Of course it—”

_NO_. That one was all capitalized, and followed by a pointed look, as if James wanted to emphasize the word beyond all doubt.

“But I said—I told you to go out and—and tell people, that we were—and then I left you alone—”

_Like I haven’t gone anywhere alone before. You didn’t know what would happen. Neither did I. Not your fault._

“I—”

_No_ , again. Then, after a second, one more _I love you_.

“I—I love you too. You know that. Of course I do. Forever.”

A small pause; the hand, in his, squeezed his fingers, lightly.

_How bad?_

“I…um, maybe I shouldn’t…”

_Please_.

“Okay.” Wasn’t as if he could say anything else. Not to that request. Not to those eyes. “You, um. The…cuts, the surface things…those are pretty minor…your voice, they said it might take some time, but it’s just very bad bruising…um, you have two dislocated fingers. Had. They’re…back. In place. The…” He couldn’t say that part of it. He just couldn’t. Wasn’t capable of speaking those words out loud, where they might take hideous shape in the room.

“Everything else—that’s—that _will_ heal. Eventually. They said. You’ll be fine. I promise, James.”

James glanced down for a second, then back up, and nodded. _How long?_

“You mean…how long have you been in the hospital? Or…”

_Either. Both._

“Here…you’ve been here overnight. Um. It’s the next morning. You—before that…it was…we found you in about three hours. And that was partly thanks to you. Your messages…” He stopped, because James was typing again.

_What happened?_

“To you? You—you don’t know?” He wasn’t sure he could say it, if James didn’t remember. But that head was already shaking, sending weary hair into motion across the pillowcase. _To him_.

“Oh…James, I—I don’t know if I should—they said you didn’t need any more stress and I—”

The blue eyes fixed themselves on his, expectantly. Waiting.

“I shouldn’t…but you…if I tell you, you have to be all right, okay? Just—relax, please?” Another nod; the eyes didn’t waver.

“All right, then. I wasn’t there—well, I was there, I was outside, they wouldn’t let me go in—but as far as I’ve heard, um. He had a—a knife. That he was using—I can’t, James, I’m sorry—”

The fingers tightened around his, mutely encouraging. “Okay. Okay. I—they told him to drop it, and he didn’t, he attacked one of the officers, and they—um, they shot him. They didn’t mean to—but he didn’t make it. So…he’s gone.”

At first he wasn’t sure, from the lack of reaction, that James had heard.

And then he saw all the last hints of color drain from that already-pale face, leaving golden freckles stranded and alone in the whiteness. And the eyes weren’t quite looking at his, anymore. Seeing something, or someone, else instead. Not anyone currently in the room.

“James?” Oh, god. Oh god. He heard his voice crack, when he tried again. “James, look at me. Please. I—oh, fuck, I _knew_ I shouldn’t—I’m so sorry, that was stupid, you didn’t need to know—James, come on, come back, _please_.”

James blinked. Took a breath. Shivered, as if shaking away a nightmare, emerging from black water. Breathed in one more time, and tapped fingers against his hand. Michael wasn’t quite sure what that was supposed to mean.

Around them, monitors beeped, incongruously. Interrupting all the crowded silence. Too crowded; one too many ghosts, in the tiny space. But the equipment, not being supernaturally inclined, took no notice, and chirped again; and this time James glanced up at him, expression indecipherable. Went back to typing, one letter at a time.

_I’m all right. Thank you for telling me._

All right? James was nowhere near all right. Neither of them were. But Michael wasn’t the one lying in the cold metal-and-plastic embrace of the hospital bed. And offering silent answers, through the mocking assistance of a mobile phone’s keyboard, when he had no voice of his own.

And James was thanking him. For what? He hadn’t done anything. Hadn’t been able to do anything.

James squeezed his hand again. _Sorry_.

“Oh, god—no, don’t. Don’t ever say—don’t apologize. Just—please. I love you. I—thank _you_. For still—for coming back. To me.”

James looked up at him, the sapphires of those eyes all tangled up and murky and labyrinthine, mazes of shadows and dark places and wounds that Michael could only imagine. Seemed to be pondering that statement.

The insensitive monitor went _beep!_ one more time. He wanted to kick it, for interfering with whatever James might be thinking.

The eyes went back to the phone. So did the fingers. _I could hear you. Talking. Wanted to answer you sooner. You asked me to come back._

“Yes. I did. I—”

_You said you would even sing to me. If you had to._

“I would have. I would, right now, if you wanted that.”

A pause; but not, he thought, an uncomfortable one. Not as bleak, or unfriendly, this time. And maybe James did need the artificial assistance of the keyboard to answer, but James _was_ answering. And hadn’t let go of his hand.

Speaking of answering, James had kept poking the keyboard, while Michael’d been watching his face and wanting to brush back unruly strands of curling hair. He’d stopped himself, because he was afraid to reach for any part of James without explicit permission. But his fingers ached with the need to touch.

_Then I might want that. Better than the horrible beeping, anyway.  :-)_

“Oh, thanks.” He’d’ve tried a longer answer, but no other words would’ve made it past the tears, where they’d gathered to block his throat.

_Meant it. Kind of tired—_

“Then you should sleep.”

_—sing to me? While I fall asleep? Want your voice. Feels warm._

“I—of course I can. Anything you ask me to do. I can sing to you every time you need to fall asleep, if you want.” James smiled, at that. Michael smiled back. Let himself feel warm, inside, too. The sensation settled in, and surrounded all the places that’d been numbed by fear, and coaxed them, patiently, towards sunlight again.

He started to hum, softly. And knew the second James recognized the song, because some of the clouds went away, in those eyes, as the sapphires brightened.

“I know you know this one,” he said, out loud, because James would recognize that line too, would remember that interview, “and you can’t start laughing this time, because you asked me to sing, so you’re just going to have to listen,” and then went back to singing, actual words now. Even though it was hard, now that James was looking so nearly happy, not to stop. Not to weep, or laugh, or do both, out of relief and astonishment and joy.

James did fall asleep, around the second verse. Real sleep, healing sleep, this time. And still smiling, through the bruises and the bandages and the pain. The hair fell into his face again, and Michael still didn’t push it back, but finished the song, quietly, sitting there in the too-hard bedside chair amid the echoes of his own voice and all the rediscovered warmth.

He still had James’s hand in his. And when the obnoxious monitor beeped at them again, the noise didn’t seem so annoying, anymore.


End file.
